Homestuck Time Loops
by fantasyPhysicist
Summary: Yggdrasil, the computer that runs the multiverse, has been damaged. The Admins have set the various universes to Loop through time until the damage is repaired. Until then, the Loopers are free to run amok.


**DISCLAIMER**:** I don't own Homestuck, nor do I make money off of it. This is made solely for the entertainment of the public.**

**NOTE: This fanfiction is not considered canon with other stories is the Infinite Loops. Remember this when referring to it.**

Rules of the Loops:

One person in a Loop, usually the main character, is chosen to be the Anchor. They are the first person who starts looping through time.

There is always at least one Anchor present in any time loop, though it doesn't have to be the local one.

The standard pattern for a Loop is that the Anchor and anyone else Looping there come to awareness (they Awake) at a certain point in the story. From there on, the Loop will play out as influenced by the Loopers, acting with their foreknowledge, until a certain point arrives and the Loop ends, or the Anchor dies.

To be Awake is to be aware of the time loops (that is, remembering you've gone back in time).

The Anchor is the only character guaranteed to be Awake for the Loop.

Crossovers, fusions, and alternate pasts can sometimes occur. For example, it's perfectly possible to Awaken in a Loop that conforms to a fanfiction instead of canon, or just a Loop that's different from the original timeline in general.

Loops don't have to be in chronological order, but it's preferred that it doesn't happen so that both A has to be before B and B has to be before A.

Almost every Looper is very, very stir crazy.

* * *

><p>1.1<p>

* * *

><p>John Egbert blinked. He glanced about his room for a moment.<p>

Wait a minute.

_His room._

Last he could remember, he was on Lowas, playing the pipe organ. So why was he standing in his room? He walked toward his window, looking outside. He was back on Earth. He shook his head. Something was not right. He went over to his computer and logged in. A text file he didn't recognize was on his desktop. He opened it out of curiosity.

_Dear John,_

_You are more than likely wondering what you_ are_ doing back home on Earth. I don't want to bore you too badly so early on, but the short version is that some severe damage has been done to the multiverse, and us gods in charge of it have started putting the universes into a sort of debug mode until the damage is repaired. As a result, your universe (or rather multiverse) is now looping through time. Right now you are the only one in your universe who remembers these loops. A few loops from now I will bring you into the Admins' (the gods who run the multiverse) domain so I can explain it to you in further detail. Until then, you are free to do whatever you want with the loops._

_ Sincerely, Skaia (Admin of the Homestuck Loop)_

John sat and processed this information for a moment. Suddenly, he grinned.

This was going to be interesting.

* * *

><p>1.2<p>

* * *

><p>John giggled furiously at his antics. Since he'd discovered he could control the Breeze even before they started the game, he'd taken to messing with his friends in whatever way he could.<p>

_TG:john what the fuck is happening_

_EB:relax dave. a little wind never hurt anyone._

_TG:john i'm serious what the hell are you doing_

_TG:there are smuppets flying everywhere_

_EB:come on dave. you gotta admit it's pretty cool._

_TG:john this isnt funny_

John giggled to himself, preparing for his next antic. Using his wind powers, he was able to sense what was going on in Dave's apartment by sensing the disturbances in the air. Dave was being swarmed by flying smuppets, being lifted up into the air and out his apartment window. He pulled out his phone, opening Pesterchum.

_TG:john im serious whatever the hell you are doing stop it right now_

_EB:haven't you ever wanted to fly on a magic carpet dave? it's like that but more comfortable._

_TG:how the fuck do you even know what's going on over here_

John was rolling on the floor, laughing hysterically.

* * *

><p>1.3<p>

* * *

><p>John blinked as the time loop started, noting that he had a tendency to do so. He was in an office of some kind. Sitting at a computer in front of him was a young man, probably in his twenties. He turned to John.<p>

"Oh, hello, John!" he said. "I'm Skaia, the Admin of your loop."

"Skaia?" John asked confusedly. "As in, the planet Skaia? With the Battlefield?"

"Admins have a tendency to have a name that relates to their Loop," Skaia explained. "Sit down. It's about time I explained what's going on a bit better." John sat. "You see," Skaia said, "it all started with this tree..."

* * *

><p>"...and that's pretty much it," Skaia finished.<p>

"Wow," John said, processing the mountain of information. "How did you manage to get us Looping?"

"Once the Doctor Who Loop got Looping, time travel Loops were much easier to pull off. Yours, though, was still really difficult, because Sburb isn't just a part of your Loop, it's one of Yggdrasil's built-in programs. We had to extract the Skaia Protocol from your Loop and put it somewhere else so it could keep running, and then we had to write an entirely new program to take its place in your Loop."

"That...does not sound good," John remarked.

"It's not bad," Skaia assured, "but you do have some guidelines to follow. Make sure you tell the others when they start Looping, as well."

"Alright," John agreed. "What are they?"

"First," Skaia said, "You can go god-tier at any time except in punishment Loops, but if you do, you can only use the god-tier abilities for that claspect."

"What do you mean?" John asked.

"Well," Skaia said, "you're obviously not going to be the Heir of Breath every time. The game comes up with new classes and aspects all the time. Right now there are forty-eight of each."

"Oh!" John exclaimed, as he realized the implications. "That's awesome!"

"Indeed," Skaia said. "However, you can only use that claspect's abilities in a loop where you're a different one if you've god-tiered in it before. So say you wanted to use, say, a Mage of Stars's powers in a Loop where you were the Monk of Flow. You'd have to god-tier in a Loop where you were the Mage of Stars first."

"Okay," John said. "That sounds fair."

"Next," Skaia continued, "you can't directly store grist or items alchemized using grist in your subspace pocket, but you can store captchalogue cards and alchemy equipment, and beings you kill using alchemized weapons will drop grist, no matter what Loop you are in. To compensate for the typical lack of hordes of monsters in most Loops, they'll usually drop huge amounts of it too."

"That's neat," John commented. "I wonder what kinds of grist monsters from other Loops drop?"

"Trust me," Skaia said. "There are some strange ones. Since the Internet of your Loop is pretty similar to the Hub's, I'm going to assume you've heard of Naruto?"

"Oh yeah! I used to watch it all the time!" John exclaimed.

"Two words: Chakra Grist," Skaia said.

John fanboyed for a moment. "Holy shit," he said, imagining what kinds of items he could alchemize with it.

"We've also included a new machine in the game that will show you what kinds of items you can alchemize when you provide it with certain kinds of grist. That way you're not stuck with a bunch of useless grist in Fused Loops. Next rule," Skaia said, trying to get the conversation back on track. "You can't use your teleporty-slash-time-travelly ability unless you gain it in-loop. It's really overpowered."

"Yeah," John admitted. "It is."

"Fourth rule: If you can come up with a way to store grist or boondollars in your subspace pocket on your own, you are allowed to use it, but let me tell you in advance: good luck doing so. Rule four and a half: If you do figure it out, tell us Admins, because we're too busy monitoring Yggdrasil to do it on our own, and being able to transfer abstract data between Loops would be really useful."

"Will do," John said, supressing a small chuckle.

"Fifth rule: No Loop-jumping through the Furthest Ring. That will crash both your Loop and the one you travel to and land the ones responsible in a punishment Loop."

"Understood."

"The next thing isn't a rule, in fact, it's kind of the opposite. Doomed timelines aren't a thing anymore. If they were, it'd make your Loops completely pointless because you'd have to do exactly the same thing every time."

John sighed in relief. "Good, I was wondering about that."

"Those are all the rules in place so far," Skaia said. "They're subject to change, of course, but for now, that's it. Any questions before the next Loop starts?"

"Yeah, actually," John said. "When do you think the Loops will end?"

That caught Skaia by surprise. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, I mean, you talked about all these amazing things that Loopers have experienced, accomplished, invented," John explained. "But if the Loops eventually end, what will all that be for? It'll just...vanish, won't it? Nobody will remember it but the Admins. Why can't Yggdrasil be its own community, full of Loopers who share ideas and memories, instead of just a multiverse in debug mode?"

Skaia was silent for a moment. "You want to know the truth, John?" He nodded. "The other Admins don't want to admit this, but they all know it. The community you described, with all the Loopers being part of a thriving multiversal community...that's what Yggdrasil is becoming. The Loops are never really going to end, despite the Admins' continuous suggestions otherwise. Even if we do manage to sufficiently repair Yggdrasil, none of us have the heart to just get rid of all those memories and achievements, like you said."

John thought for a moment. Then he nodded, grinning. "Okay. Go ahead, start the next Loop." Skaia typed something on his keyboard, then held his hand above the Enter key.

"Ready, John?" he asked.

"Yep," John replied. "It was nice meeting you, Skaia!"

Skaia grinned. "You too, John."

Skaia hit Enter, and the next Loop began.

* * *

><p>1.4<p>

* * *

><p>John Awoke standing in his room once again. He grinned, then walked over to his magic chest and retrieved his fake arms. He reached for his subspace pocket. Sure enough, one of the arms vanished. His Pocket was only big enough to fit one of the arms, but that was room enough for plenty of captchalogue cards. He removed the arm from his subspace pocket and put it away. He decided to go along with the baseline for the Loop, and save as many items as he could.<p>

* * *

><p>John was frankly quite surprised. In one Loop, using the new machine Skaia had implemented into Sburb, he'd alchemized a physical, condensed form of grist. He could condense ten grist into a single dice-sized cube, one hundred grist into a cube about the size of a Rubix cube, and so forth and so on. Using his dad's wallet sylladex, he'd managed to store about two million build grist, all the alchemy equipment, and varying amounts of other grist types, as well as the Warhammer of Zillyhoo and Fear No Anvil in his subspace pocket. All he had to do now was find a way to convert the condensed grist back into usable form, and once Jade started Looping, that would be laughably easy. Then again, he could just ask Skaia to implement an item-to-grist machine, but that would be easy, and he didn't know when he'd next see Skaia.<p>

He heard a ding from his holographic Cosbytop and checked Pesterchum.

_TT:John, what are you doing? Those cubes can't be turned back into grist._

John cursed himself silently as he remembered Rose could see everything he was doing.

_EB:just working on a personal project. don't worry, i won't use it all up._

_TT:If you say so. Just remember, we have a finite supply of some of the types of grist you're using._

_EB:will do._

* * *

><p>1.5<p>

* * *

><p>John sat back from his computer and stretched. For some reason, he'd Awoken earlier than normal, and decided to leave Skaia a text file explaining an idea he'd had for the alchemy system, just in case he was able to see it. In short, his idea was the Alchemiter could, in addition to making items from grist, make grist from items. The feature would only be acessible via an upgrade like Rose, Dave, and Jade had applied to their Alchemiters. A more early-game option would be to make items using other items that were composed of the right amounts of grist. The downside to this would be that any excess grist would be lost.<p>

Skaia had apparently liked John's idea, because a few Loops later, his Alchemiter had an Item Reagents pad sticking out the side of it, and there was a new Decomposer upgrade card available to put in one of his Jumper Block Extension's Punch Card Shunts.

* * *

><p>1.6<p>

* * *

><p>John had received another text file from Skaia. Skaia was very impressed that John had come up with a means of grist storage so early on. John was currently holding three dectuple-compressed build grist cubed in his subspace pocket. If he wanted, he could build a base the size of Lowas and have grist to spare.<p>

John got a Pesterchum notification and checked it. It was Dave.

_TG:john_

_EB:hm?_

_TG:normally i dont care about shit like this and i know you dont either but i had this really weird dream last night_

John couldn't control himself for a moment. He began typing furiously.

_EB:before you say anything just let me guess._

_TG:shoot_

_EB:you dreamt that you, me, jade and rose all played that new sburb beta game and it ended the world and we all became gods and met an alien race of gray-skinned people with horns called trolls._

_TG:okay_

_TG:thats pretty fucking accurate_

_TG:you mind explaining how you did that_

_EB:it wasn't a dream. basically, the multiverse is broken and the gods that run it put it in debug mode and started making the universes go through time loops. you've just now started remembering the loops._

_TG:well_

_TG:alright then_

_EB:you remember what we have to do to start the game?_

_TG:yeah_

_TG:wait hang on_

_TG:dont we have to go along with the timeline and stuff to avoid a doomed timeline_

_TG:have we just fucked ourselves over_

_EB:no. doomed timelines aren't a thing anymore._

_TG:well_

_TG:everything i know is a lie_

_EB:don't worry, i'll explain it all in better detail later._

_EB:but just so you know, i'm carrying around about thirty billion build grist right now._

_TG:way to fucking show off john_

_TG:we havent even started the game yet and you already have the resources to build a base bigger than the planet_

_TG:by the way_

_TG:how the fuck are you doing that_

_EB:before you started remembering the loops, i made some suggestions to the admin that runs our universe. you can make grist into items that you can captchalogue now, and the alchemiter has an upgrade that can turn it back to grist._

_TG:okay_

_TG:but its a time loop right_

_TG:so shouldnt you have lost the grist_

_EB:i used a thing called a subspace pocket. it's basically like that power anime characters have where they can pull items out of nowhere, except the items transfer over between time loops._

_TG:so its like hammerspace_

_TG:but cooler_

_EB:yeah._

_TG:can you teach me how to do that_

_EB:sure! i'll teach you as soon as we start the game._

_TG:by the way_

_TG:are any of the others doing the time loop thing_

_EB:nope. you're the second one, i'm the first._

_TG:okay_

_TG:will the others ever start doing the loopy thing_

_EB:eventually. it kind of spreads out from the center. it goes from one person to the people closest to them, and so forth and so on. jade and rose will be next, then the trolls, then jake and jane and dirk and roxy._

_EB:hopefully never to lord english._

_TG:so forth and so on_

_TG:youre different john_

_EB:yeah. the loops kinda do that to you._

_EB:oh!_

_EB:that reminds me of this hilarious prank i played on you one loop_

_EB:man. i should have gotten pictures._

_TG:what_

_TG:what hilarious shit did you do to me_

_TG:im dying to know john_

_EB:i'll tell you some other time._

_EB:right now rose is messaging me. we need to start the game._

_TG:john im serious_

_TG:what did you do_

_EB:sorry dave. i have a game to play._

_TG:john_

_EB:have your copy ready._

_TG:john answer my question_

**ectoBiologist[EB] has disconnected.**

_TG:john_

_TG:john thats not funny_

John sighed happily. Finally his friends were Looping.

* * *

><p>1.7<p>

* * *

><p>John decided to experiment with this loop. Before, he'd taken to just pranking his friends, expanding his subspace pocket, and amassing unnecessary amounts of grist. This loop, he wanted to try something new. He stood in front of his unprototyped Kernelsprite, grinning. Slowly, he held out two pictures, one of Nic Cage, one of Karkat.<p>

* * *

><p>Karcagesprite was not a good Kernelsprite. This became apparent very quickly. His advice consisted of Karkat's usual angry screaming laced with quotes from various Nic Cage movies. The result was both hilarious and slightly terrifying, especially to this Loop's Karkat, who questioned John very thoroughly. John decided that in the future, he would be more careful about his Kernelsprite prototyping.<p>

* * *

><p>1.8<p>

* * *

><p>John Awoke in the middle of the desert, in his god-tier outfit. He stood still for a moment and waited for the Loop memories to set in. As they did, he did a double take.<p>

His name was John Elric, alias the Atmosphere Alchemist. When he and his brother Dave Elric were little, they'd attempted to resurrect their father and older brother using alchemy. Their mother had left when they were young, to study alchemy: specifically, its uses in the creation of new alchoholic drinks. John was missing his right arm and left leg, and Dave was an empty suit of armor.

John sighed. "Dave, are you Awake this Loop?"

"This Loop is hells of weird," Dave said.

"It's a Fused Loop with the Fullmetal Alchemist anime from home," John said. "I agree with you, I really hope this isn't a formative Loop for us. I mean, alchemy is cool and stuff, but it's not really useful in combat. On the bright side," John said happily, "I feel a lot smarter now."

"I don't like it. It's too much useless knowledge," Dave complained.

"Come on, Dave," John said. "Let's see what this Loop is like. We might find some cool stuff here."

"Alright," Dave agreed. "It's an anime, so it can't be too bad."

* * *

><p>John found the Loop to be much better than he'd originally anticipated. He figured they'd managed to circumvent most of the problems that occurred in the baseline, so that probably contributed to a degree. He'd saved some philosopher's grist in his Pocket, which he was eager to see the uses of. He'd saved Mustang's gloves, which, in combination with his control of the wind, effectively turned The Windy Thing into The Burny Thing. Dave stored the massive Philosopher's Stone that had been made in his stomach in his subspace pocket (after grudgingly giving half to John to keep). John had decided to save his automail in his subspace pocket to break down into grist later on. Interestingly enough, Jade had Replaced whoever the automail mechanic was in the baseline, but she wasn't Awake for the Loop.<p>

John stopped stuffing captchalogue cards into his subspace pocket for a moment to look at Dave. Dave was messing around with his alchemy equipment. "Whatcha doin', Dave?" John asked.

"Seeing what I can make with all this philosopher's grist," Dave said. "Oh, this looks cool," he remarked, looking at a hologram of what was apparently a Caledfwlch covered in a red Philosopher's Stone transmutation circle. Dave checked the requirements to make it, then ran a couple captchalogue cards through the Punch Designix and then the Totem Lathe. He alchemized the sword and gave it a couple swings.

"Wonder what this thing can do," Dave thought aloud.

"Tell me next home Loop you're Awake," John said. "I want to practice something." He put on one of Mustang's gloves, and summoned a small tornado a good distance away from him. He snapped his fingers, and a trail of the Breeze linking his hand and the tornado ignited. The tornado followed suit, and became what John would refer to as The Blazing Cyclone Of Doom.

"Dude, that's pretty sick," Dave said.

"Isn't it?" John replied, his eyes sparkling. Literally. The flames were rather bright.

* * *

><p>1.9<p>

* * *

><p>John had managed to prevent Bec from being prototyped into Jade's Kernelsprite, which had solved a lot of problems. His dad hadn't died this Loop, nor had Dave's bro or Rose's mom. The trolls had successfully completed their session, which meant John never saw them. Dave and Rose hadn't gone off on their Green Sun-destroying suicide mission, which unfortunately meant that they didn't god-tier. John had made sure he held on to the ring so that Aranea never got it, and made a note to keep one or two in his Pocket just in case. There was one odd thing about this Loop though, and he was eager to try something out.<p>

Since Vriska had never pestered him about it, he hadn't bothered to god-tier this Loop. At the momeng he stood on his Quest Bed, holding a knife in one hand. He raised the knife and swung it, lodging the blade in his chest. He fell to the ground, and the Scout of Myth ascended to the god tiers.

* * *

><p>John was frankly surprised by his new outfit. He hadn't heard of either the Scout class or the Myth aspect. Apparently, his role as the Scout of Myth was to guide creativity. In a more literal sense, he could make stories come to life, as well as inspire other people to be creative. He wasn't sure how useful either of those powers would really be, but hey, a god tier was a god tier.<p>

He wasn't sure he liked the look of it though.

* * *

><p>1.1: Welcome the Heir of Breath to the Loops.<p>

1.2: Shenanigans.

1.3: John can be deep when he wants to.

1.4: Way to get a head start, John.

1.5: Skaia goes a bit too easy on them sometimes.

1.6: Welcome the Knight of Time.

1.7: Never prototype a sprite with Karkat.

1.8: Sorry JohnDave shippers. They're brothers now.

1.9: Look up 48 Classes and 48 Aspects on Google. It's the first result. I would put it here, but for some reason it keeps deleting the link.


End file.
